Classics onscreen

While dozens of new award-winning flicks are magnets at this year's Bangkok International Film Festival, 13 classic rare masterpieces by Indian superstar Hema Malini and late Spanish director Luis Bunuel (1900-1983) are the festival's gems.

"As this year festival focuses on Asian cinema, we would like to pay tribute to an Asian legend. So we invited Hema Malini, who is popular among Thais," says Kriengsak "Victor" Silakong, the festival's artistic director.

Hema, 59, who walked on the red carpet yesterday at the festival, is the special guest of the organiser, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, which is presenting four films including "Lal Patthar" (1971), "Sholay" (1975), "Dillagi" (1978) and her recent "Baghban" (2003).

The director hopes that Hema will bring back good memories of when Bollywood was big in Bangkok, playing at the now-closed Queen Cinema in Pahurat.

 "Bollywood films are rarely played here. Through a variety of Hema's films, we hope viewers see how the Bollywood industry is very strong. Bollywood films in the 1970s are full of innocence, in which romantic couples sing and run around on hills. Such scenes dramatically change today in Bollywood films, which mostly look more like music videos with stars clad in sexy clothes such as in erotic romances like in Hollywood," Victor comments.

Hema's fans will today have another chance to meet and greet her at the screening of Bollywood's biggest blockbuster "Sholay" at 7pm. After the screening in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles, the veteran actress will join a Q&A session.

Directed by Ramesh Sippy, "Sholay" stars Hema, Sanjeev Kumar, Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan. "Sholay" is the highest grossing film of all time in India. It has earned 236,450,000 rupees (equivalent to US$60 million, after adjusting for inflation). In 1999, BBC India declared it the "Film of the Millennium" and in 2005, judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards called it the best film of the last 50 years.

When first released, the film was declared a commercial disaster. Word of mouth convinced moviegoers to give the film a chance and soon it became a box-office phenomenon. It ran for 286 weeks straight in one Bombay theatre, the Minerva. Sholay racked up a still record 60 golden jubilees across India, and doubled its original gross over reruns during the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

The action-romance Bollywood film follows two small-time crooks (Dharmendra as Veeru and Amitabh Bachchan as Jaidev) who are recruited by a former police officer (Sanjeev Kumar) to fight a tyrannical gangster who has killed his entire family. The recruit, Veeru, fights with the cowboy and falls in love with the local horse carriage driver Basanti (Hema Malini).

The cowboy Bollywood movie "Sholay" reflects the influence of Western Hollywood style, while including singing and dancing on the hills, a signature of Bollywood films.

Directed by Basu Chatterjee, "Dillagi" brings Dharmendra and Hema back on celluloid again. The comedy drama tells the story of a new Sanskrit teacher (Dharmendra) at a girls' school. A chemistry teacher (Hema Malini) becomes annoyed at his style of teaching. He falls in love with her and tries to win her over.

Sushil Majumdar directed this romantic family "Lal Patthar" in 1971. It's the story of Gyan Shankar, Madhuri his mistress and Sumita his young wife. Gyan Shankar is driven to insanity by the jealous mistress by making him believe that his wife is having an affair with the foreigner from Ambarish.

Her recent film "Baghban" is directed by Ravi Chopra in 2003 and stars Hema and Amitabh Bachchan. Drama follows a family where the parents (Amitabh and Hema) sacrifice everything to nurture their four children, only to be left uncared for when they grow old.

In a tribute to Spanish filmmaker Bunuel, filmgoers will have a chance to view seven of his rare films showcasing his artistic talent in a variety of genres.

"Bunuel is the great artist," says Victor, "his film is like a "work of art". He touches everyone with his realistic story - mostly a satire of the middle class - including himself - in a dark funny way. Most of his films reflect human subconscious and the dark side of humanity."

Luis Bunuel was given the Career Golden Lion in 1982 by the Venice Film Festival and the Fipresci Prize - Honourable Mention in 1969 by the Berlin Film Festival.

A close friend of surrealist artist Salvador Dali and poet Federico Garcia Lorca, Bunuel's work shows a strong surrealist influence. Bunuel disliked non-diegetic music, and avoided it in his films. The films of his French era were not scored and some ("Belle de Jour", "Diary of a Chambermaid") contain absolutely no music whatsoever. "Belle de Jour" does, however, feature potentially non-diegetic sound effects, believed by some to be clues as to whether or not the current scene is a dream.

Bunuel's films in the festival are "Belle de Jour" (1967), "Tristana" (1970), "The Diary of a Chambermaid" (1964), "The Way Milky" (1969), "The Phantom of Liberty"(1974), "That Obscure Object of Desire" (1977), and the classic short "Un Chien Andalou" (1929).

In Bunuel's masterpiece of erotica "Belle de Jour", Catherine Deneuve plays, Severine Serizy aka Belle de Jour, a frigid young housewife deciding to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute. No disgusting sexual scenes are in this movie. Instead the director portrays erotica sensibly through Severine's imagination. Brilliant acting, cinematography and directing won "Belle de Jour" the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1967.

Bunuel's masterpiece has inspired an update, "Belle Toujour", directed by Manoel de Oliveira. Taking place 40 years after "Belle de Jour", Michel Piccoli reprises his role as Henri Husson, the man who was obsessed with the Belle de Jour. Seeing her (Bulle Ogier standing in for Catherine Deneuve) in a crowd one day, he makes it his mission to contact her.

Bunuel's best-known short "Un Chien Andalou" has been screened in Thailand many times. But seeing it again with films from other genres at this festival gives it new interpretation, which always happens when we again and again watch his fascinating films.

Co-directed with his then-friend, the artist Salvador Dali, this surrealistic 16-minute-film is one of the best-known surrealist films of the French avant-garde film movement of the 1920s.

The film has no plot, in the normal sense of the word. It portrays a dream-like sequence, a woman's eye is slit open - juxtaposed with a similarly shaped cloud obscuring.

Bunuel and Dali would later have a falling out, after Dali accused Bunuel of being a communist and an atheist.

"The Diary of a Chambermaid" is one of Bunuel's most perverse films, in the sense that it deals with decadent behaviour and assorted execrations. The black and white feature follows a chambermaid's sojourn at a godforsaken estate, which is inhabited by a foot fetishist, a pro-Nazi brute, and an impotent father. Once confronting these oddball monsters, she must fulfil their aberrant desires in the subtlest yet disturbing ways possible.

Bunuel's last "That Obscure Object of Desire" was released in 1977, three years before he died in 1980. It's a celebration of the vigour of sexual obsession and the sovereignty of the subconscious. The film won the critics' hearts, but was a financial failure. The film depicts an unrequited courtship taking place in Spain and France amid a backdrop of a terrorist insurgency.

The Bangkok International Film Festival is on until July 29 at SF World Cinemas in CentralWorld. Tickets are Bt120, available at the cinema box office. For the complete schedule of films, see www.bangkokfilm.org.

Weekend Staff